Led me

[kinein]

So its been a little hot lately where I live and the energy bill is getting out of control. Not running the air conditioner is not a option. But I am considering making changes elsewhere. All of our appliances are 2 months old. We have many lights in the house that are not all energy efficient. The wife and I been discussing to switching all the bulbs to LED. Has anyone done this and seen a difference in their bill? Is it worth the investment? any suggestions?

[Flieger]

[slodave]

I have turn most lights off in my place if I am not in those rooms, but my living room has a LED that is on for a number of hours . I was running a CFL in this light before, so my rates were already better, but yes, I did notice a diff in my utility bill compared to the CFL. I think I've had it a year now. No problems so far and the lamp it is in has a rheostat (how I turn it on and off). Doesn't seem to mind that at all. I actually had another LED that was more for outdoors that is now in my downstairs bathroom. The temp of that one is not good for night. Made me feel weird, but when the CFL died, I needed light, so in it went as well. I plan on replacing the rest of my CFL's with LED's as they die.

[sc_rufctr]

I replaced the down lights in my kitchen with LEDs about 9 months ago.
So far so good. They're not cheap but they should last a whole lot longer than fluorescent bulbs.

Like Dave I'm planning to do the whole house as each fluorescent fails.

There should be a real difference because of the claims by the manufacturers but who knows for sure.

[john70t]

The LED equivalent of a 60W bulb is about 7W.
Considering old night lights used to be 3.5W, that is not too bad.

[Tervuren]

I suggest trying one out in a color temperature that matches what you have already. LED's cycle on and off rapidly, at a rate that your eye still makes out objects. Some led's can be on a frequency that can bugger with your camera, for example.

I light my room with a single studio quality 100W LED on a lightstand pointed at the ceiling wall. While it may not be very efficient to light a room from wall/ceiling reflection, I do well with its color temperature and light quality.

[tabs]

Well figure it out....IF you used a 60W Incandescent bulb replaced with a 14W CFL bulb and that is cut in half with a 7W LED...you would cut the room lighting portion of your bill by half from the CFL all things being the same. However you are still using the same old electricity guzzling home appliances (including AC) which jack your bill particularly in the summer. There you might want to check on the energy efficiency of each of those units and make a determination if it is worth your while to upgrade their efficiency.

Then there is going solar on the home, in the SW, if one is planning and staying in the home for a lengthy period of time solar becomes attractive.

[widgeon13]

How about washing the dishes in the sink and going back to an ice box as well.

[beepbeep]

I have done it but my bill for replacing incandescent lights with (good enough) LED bulbs will take many years to compensate with lower consumption.

Basically, if you only want 60W-bulb LED equivalent (~7W LED) that is switched with on/off switch then you can get it for 4$ a pop and you might regain the investment within a year. But if you need a 100W-equivalent that is dimmable and has reasonably good CRI (colour rendition index ) then price jumps to 40-50$ a piece.

So YMMV...

I found these (or their EU 220V equivalent) to be the best:

https://www.platt.com/platt-electric-supply/LED-Traditional-Lamps-A-Type/Philips-Lighting/22A21-END-2700-DIM/product.aspx?zpid=5698

[wdfifteen]

Fleiger's graphic is hilarious! Thanks.

I'd like to replace the 60 watt bulbs in my overhead can lights with LEDs. I'm tired of borrowing a 12 foot step ladder to get to them when I have to replace them (2wice a year normally). They aren't dimmable, so a cheap 7 watt LED would work?

[gr8fl4porsche]

Par30 65watt comparable LED's are $ 13 - $16 now at HD.

I have been using Cree brand for a month or so. So far - so good.

Dimmable, 9.5 watt soft white looks similar to an incandescent.

They do not dim as low as incandescent - appears to be about 50% dimming.

[Pazuzu]

I went with the CREE bulbs all through out the house, either 60W equivalent soft white (yellow, matches incandescent quite well) in the normal rooms, or 60-100 watt equivalent daylight (very blue/white) in closets, the garages, etc where I want a strong crisp light. Even put them into the garage door openers, pantry, etc. I bought them in 6 packs on amazon, worked out to be around $8-9 each.

The CREEs have a good bulb design (nearly the same dimensions as an old bulb), a frosted bulb to diffuse the light, and have primarily sideways lighting just like an incandescent bulb.

[VincentVega]

cfl is much more cost effective but either way your cost savings is in dollars per year per bulb max. Unless you have the lights on 24/7 you'll be hard pressed to see a sizable delta in your power bill.

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by VincentVega

cfl is much more cost effective but either way your cost savings is in dollars per year per bulb max. Unless you have the lights on 24/7 you'll be hard pressed to see a sizable delta in your power bill.

I found that my new LED bulbs (a) light up faster, (b) make less noise, (c) have a cleaner light, and (d) last MUCH longer than the CFLs that populated out house before. My personal opinion is that a good quality LED is a better light than a good quality CFL all around, and that the rapidly dropping costs of LEDs make them the best option for new bulbs.

Oh, they seem to spew less heat as well, the bathroom has an 8 bulb fixture, you could feel the heat coming off of it when the CFLs were on, but not with the LEDS.

[VincentVega]

Completely agree.

If you are looking at lowering your utility bill though, the math is tough. The local costco sells a 5-6 pack of cfls for less then $5, that includes some build in rebate(s). Like you said, a high quality led is very impressive but it takes a while to see any $$ savings compared to cfl if that's your priority.

[Hugh R]

As they die, I'm replacing the filament bulbs in my RV with LEDs. Driving an RV down the road vibrates those filaments and cuts their life pretty quickly.

[VincentVega]

Very useful when operating on house batteries too. I've tried a few on my boat and they make a big difference in power usage. Much different situation compared to a home but a few led's on the boat can run all day without running the engine or having a huge bank of batteries.

[gatotom]

In central WA, electricity is cheap, never seem to worry about heating or AC.

VincentVega, the thing that was huge on my boat was switching to AGM batteries, sure they are twice the cost of flooded but on the hook, awesome power. Used to always worry more than 2 days on the hook not anymore. 4 days on the hook and all batteries still have 100% power, I have 3 group 27 batteries. I still have halogen bulbs, its been 3 yrs since new.

[crustychief]

I changed all the bulbs in my house to LED, I also blew in about three feet deep insulation in the attic this winter. My bill was cut more than half from 400 to about 150 ish. Still looking for ways to improve efficiency.

[95avblm3]

I spent the past 5.5 years working for a company that was a start-up in the LED replacement lamp market space, so I've been around this for a while.

You've already gotten good advice, so I'll try and be short but add a few more pointers.

1) Buy quality bulbs. Someone mentioned Cree... They are good. Phillips has been at the forefront of the big 3 (Phillips, Sylvania, GE) in creating LED lights. They have pretty nice stuff. We used Osram diodes extensively in our products. Osram is the semiconductor end of Sylvania, so I'd recommend them too. Avoid no name crap. Also be leery of some of the store brands like Ecosmart or Utilitech. They are rebranded and while some may be good, others are no good... For a while, a company named Lighting Science Group was rebranding their lights for HD under the Ecosmart name. Not all of them had fuses and there were a few instances of fires. Not trying to be an alarmist, just driving home the point that you get what you pay for.

2) Warmer color temperatures (designated by a lower Kelvin temp, like 2700K) will more closely match the incandescents you are replacing.

3) If you have dimmers, make sure you buy dimmable lamps and make sure your dimmers are LED compatible. If not, you may experience flickering.

4) Conversely, if you don't have dimmers, you may be able to save a few bucks by buying non-dimmable bulbs.

5) While cheaper off the shelf, LED is better that CFL because of better dimmability, better life, in direct comparison they can use up to 50% the power and most importantly, there is no Mercury as there is in CFLs.

Unfortunately, my company suffered the fate of many start-ups and ceased operations earlier in the year. If there's any consolation, my severance was enough LED 4' tubes to re-lamp my garage and bonus room, which combined is about 19 fixtures with 2 bulbs each. And I have spares. I replaced 40W LFLs with LED tubes that are under 10W each.

It's a good choice in my opinion.